“The Open Access Directory (+OAD, @oad) is an #openaccess encyclopedia of open access. Among other things, it tracks OA-related conferences and workshops. For October 2016, it captured 411 events, reflecting the surge of global activity surrounding this year’s OA Week.

“Years ago the Open Access Directory (+OAD) launched a list of people willing to speak about OA at conferences, organized by country.

http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/OA_speakers_bureau

The idea was to help conference organizers identify potential speakers, especially by country or region, and to consider people they night not have thought about.

It was a good idea, and in the early days it grew to a decent size. But it has barely been revised in years, and today represents only a small fraction of the many good people qualified to speak about OA at conferences.

So the Open Access Directory faced a question. Should we try to expand the list, or retire it?

We’ve decided to try to expand it. If we succeed, it will be useful again. If we don’t succeed, we can always retire it later. We’d rather try first than not try at all.

If you’re not listed and want to be, please add yourself. If you’re already listed but want to update your affiliation or contact info, please do so. And please spread the word to colleagues who ought to be listed….”

“Years ago the Open Access Directory (+OAD) launched a list of people willing to speak about OA at conferences, organized by country.

http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/OA_speakers_bureau

The idea was to help conference organizers identify potential speakers, especially by country or region, and to consider people they night not have thought about.

It was a good idea, and in the early days it grew to a decent size. But it has barely been revised in years, and today represents only a small fraction of the many good people qualified to speak about OA at conferences.

So the Open Access Directory faced a question. Should we try to expand the list, or retire it?

We’ve decided to try to expand it. If we succeed, it will be useful again. If we don’t succeed, we can always retire it later. We’d rather try first than not try at all.

If you’re not listed and want to be, please add yourself. If you’re already listed but want to update your affiliation or contact info, please do so. And please spread the word to colleagues who ought to be listed….”

?The OAD is a wiki and depends on the community to keep it accurate, current, and comprehensive. It’s crowd-sourced and distributed under a CC-BY license. To limit spam, editing is limited to registered users, but registration is free and easy. Reading and reuse are free for all. http://oad.simmons.edu

“If you need a quick one-stop shop for key numbers on the current state of OA, consult this list. Help your fellow researchers and advocates by updating numbers already listed and adding new numbers not already there.”

“I’m sorry to report that Robin Peek died on August 21. Robin was the editor and co-founder of the Open Access Directory, a columnist on publishing for 15 years inInformation Today, and a professor at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She was also an early and long-time supporter of open access.